31595011 low income housing approaches to help the urban poor find adequate accommodation

7/29/2019 31595011 Low Income Housing Approaches to Help the Urban Poor Find Adequate Accommodation

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Q U I C K G U I D E S

F O RP O L I C Y

M A K E R S

citiesLOW-INCOME HOUSING:

Approaches to help the urban poorfind adequate accommodation

housingthe

in Asian

poor

2

United Nations

ESCAP


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Copyright United Nations Human Settlements Programme andUnited Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacic, 2008

ISBN: 978-92-113-1947-7HS/960/08E Housing the Poor in Asian Cities, Quick Guide 2

DISCLAIMERThe designations employed and the presentation of material in this publication do not imply the expressionof any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Secretariat of the United Nations concerning the legal status ofany country, territory, city or area or its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundariesregarding its economic systemor degree of development. The analysis, conclusions and recommendationsof this publication do not necessarily reect the views of United Nations or its memberStates. Excerpts maybe reproduced without authorization, on condition that the source is indicated.

Cover design by Tom Kerr, ACHR and printed in Nairobi by the United Nations Ofce at Nairobi

Cover photo by Asian Coalition for Housing Rights

The publication of the Housing the Poor in Asian Cities series was made possible through the nancial supportof the Dutch Government and the Development Account of the United Nations.

Published by:United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacic (UNESCAP)

Rajdamnern Nok AvenueBangkok 10200, ThailandFax: (66-2) 288 1056/1097E-mail: [email protected]: www.unescap.org

and

United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT)P.O.Box 30030 GPO 00100Nairobi, KenyaFax: (254-20) 7623092E-mail: [email protected]: www.un-habitat.org


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QUICK GUIDES FOR POLICY MAKERS 2, LOW-INCOME HOUSING

Acknowledgements

This set of seven Quick Guides have been prepared as a result of an expert group meeting

on capacity-building for housing the urban poor, organized by UNESCAP in Thailand in July2005. They were prepared jointly by the Poverty and Development Division of UNESCAPand the Training and Capacity Building Branch (TCBB) of UN-HABITAT, with funding fromtheDevelopment Account of the United Nations and the Dutch Government under the projectsHousing the Poor in Urban Economies and Strengthening National Training Capabilitiesfor Better Local Governance and Urban Development respectively. An accompanying setof posters highlighting the key messages fromeach of the Quick Guides and a set of self-administered on-line training modules are also being developed under this collaboration.

The Quick Guides were produced under the overall coordination of Mr. Adnan Aliani, Povertyand Development Division, UNESCAP and Ms. sa Jonsson, Training and Capacity BuildingBranch, UN-HABITAT with vital support and inputs fromMr. Yap Kioe Sheng, Mr. Raf Tutsand Ms. Natalja Wehmer. Internal reviews and contributions were also provided by Ms.Clarissa Augustinus, Mr. Jean-Yves Barcelo, Mr. Selman Erguden, Mr. Solomon Haile, Mr.

Jan Meeuwissen, Mr. Rasmus Precht, Ms. Lowie Rosales, and Mr. Xing Zhang.

The Guides were prepared by Mr. Thomas A. Kerr, Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (ACHR)based on documents prepared by Mr. Babar Mumtaz, Mr. Michael Mattingly and Mr. PatrickWakely, formerly of the Development Planning Unit (DPU), University College of London;Mr. Yap Kioe Sheng, UNESCAP; Mr. Aman Mehta, Sinclair Knight Merz Consulting; Mr.Peter Swan, Asian Coalition for Housing Rights; and Mr. Koen Dewandeler, King MongkutInstitute of Technology, Thailand.

The original documents and other materials can be accessed at:www.housing-the-urban-poor.net.

The above contributions have all shaped the Quick Guide series, which we hope willcontribute to the daily work of policy makers in Asia in their quest to improve housing forthe urban poor.


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Contents

What are slums and squatter settlements? .................................................................2

No two are alike: Informal settlements in Asian cities ................................................... 3Why do slums exist at all? ............................................................................................4

What to do about slums? .............................................................................................. 5

4 key aspects of informal housing development........................................................... 6

Women and low-income housing ................................................................................. 8

Discrimination in access to housing and land ............................................................... 9

Eviction and slumclearance ...................................................................................... 10

5 alternatives to eviction:

Option 1: On-site upgrading................................................................................. 13

Why is on-site upgrading often the best option of all? ................................................ 14

7 principles of successful upgrading........................................................................... 16

Upgrading dos and donts .......................................................................................... 19

7 stages of a typical upgrading project ....................................................................... 20

Check list: Questions you should ask about your upgrading project .......................... 24

Option 2: Resettlement ........................................................................................ 25

Managing the resettlement process in a participatory way .........................................26

Putting people at the centre of the resettlement process ...........................................28

The resettlement site ..................................................................................................29

Option 3: Government-built new public housing.............................................. 30

Can governments provide housing for all? ................................................................31

Option 4: Sites-and-services ............................................................................... 32

5 ways to make sites-and-services work better ..........................................................33

The problems of sites-and-services ............................................................................34

Option 5: City-wide housing strategies ............................................................. 36

What do you need to go up to city-wide scale? ..........................................................39

Books, articles, publications and websites ................................................................. 40

C O N D I T I O N S

C O N C E P T S

A P P R O A C H E S & G U I D E L I N E S

R E S O U R C E S


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Low-ncome housng:Approaches to help theurban poor fnd adequateaccommodaton

Q U I C K G U I D E F O R P O L I C Y M A K E R S N U M B E R 2

This guide describes several ways of addressing low-income housing at theprogramme and project level. It focuses on well-tried methods of improving thehousing and living environments of people living in slums and squatter settle-ments, and providing adequate housing for future generations of urban poor.

The rst part presents concepts essential to understanding low-income housing,and explores the reasons behind the serious lack of decent, affordable hous-

ing and hence the problemof urban slums. Key approaches to address thehousing needs of the urban poor are outlined next, by examining alternativestrategies for what to do about existing slums and how to avoid future slumsthrough the production of new housing. Finally, the guide examines the mainconsiderations needed to address the improvement of slums and production ofadequate and affordable low-income housing on a city-wide scale.

This guide is not aimed at specialists, but instead aims to help build the capaci-ties of national and local government ofcials and policy makers who need toquickly enhance their understanding of low-income housing issues.

Millennium DevelopmentGoal 7, Target 11:

To achieve signicant improvement in the lives

of at least 100 million slum-dwellers by 2020,

recognizing the urgent need for the provision ofincreased resources for affordable housing and

housing-related infrastructure, prioritizing slum

prevention and slum upgrading ....

Article 56.m of the September 2005 UN Summit

resolutionPHOTO:HOMELESSINTERNATIONAL


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What are slumsand squatter settlements?Not all of Asias urban poor live in slums, and

conversely, not all those who live in slums arepoor. However, the poor quality of housing andlack of basic services that are common in slumsrepresent a clear dimension of urban poverty. Thisguide will therefore look at slums as the main focusof low-income housing.

Urban poor settlements come in a variety of sizesand shapes, and are called by a variety of names

not only slums. The word slum traditionallydescribes a neighbourhood of housing that wasonce in good condition but has since deterioratedor been subdivided into a state of high crowding

and rented out to low-income groups. Asquatter

settlement, on the other hand, is an area of poorquality housing built on illegally occupied land. Athird kind of settlement is anirregular subdivi-sion, in which the legal owner subdivides the landinto sub-standard plots and sells or rents themoutwithout following all relevant building bylaws.

UN-HABITAT denes a slum household as a group

of people living under the same roof in an urban area

who lack one or more of the following conditions:durable housing, sufcient living area, access toclean water, access to proper sanitation and securetenure. (See Quick Guide 1 on Urbanization)

It lacks basic services such as adequateaccess to safe water, paved walkways,drains, sanitation and other essentialinfrastructure.

It contains dilapidated and poor qualityhousing structures that break the vari-ous building bylaws.

It is overcrowded or characterized byextremely high density of dwellings and

population.

It has an unhealthy living environmentand may be located on hazardous orundevelopable land.

Its residents have insecure land tenureand may be evicted.

Its residents experience high levels of

poverty and social exclusion.

What makes an urban community a slum?

PHOTOS

:ACHR


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No two are alkeInformal settlements in Asian cities come in all shapes and sizes,but the common denominator is their highly dynamic, highly

resourcesful response to an absolute lack of other options

A KATCHI ABADI IN KARACHI, PAKISTAN, a cityringed with public land, where people have laid out andbuilt their own city-sized settlements.

A ROOFTOP SLUM IN PHNOM PENH, a city whereeven the roof terraces of derelict apartment buildingswere used for poor peoples housing.

A GARBAGE DUMP SLUM IN MANILA, where 35,000

households earn a good living gathering recyclablewaste, but must still live in poor conditions.

A GER AREA IN ULANBATAAR, MONGOLIA, wherethe citys rural migrants have brought their nomadic-style,felt-lined ger tents along with them.

A FOOTPATH SLUM IN MUMBAI, INDIA, a city where55% of the population lives in slums, and many cant evenafford to buy houses in slums.

A CANAL-SIDE SLUM IN BANGKOK, THAILAND,

where the long stretches of public land along canals hasbeen occupied by some 220 communities.

CON

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PHOTO:ACHR

PHOTO:UNESCAP

PHOTO:ACHR

PHOTO

:UNESCAP

PHOTO

:ACHR

PHOTO:ACHR


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Why do slums exst at all?

Slums are the products of failed policies,bad governance, corruption, inappropriateregulation, dysfunctional land markets,unresponsive nancial systems and a fun-damental lack of political will. Each of thesefailures adds to the toll on people alreadydeeply burdened by poverty and constrainsthe enormous potential for human develop-ment that urban life offers.

http://web.mit.edu/urbanupgrading

In most cities, the main problem is access to suitable land

Low-income households need to live close to

income-earning opportunities in the commercialand industrial centres of cities and towns in orderto minimize the cost and time spent in getting towork. But good land in these central places isgenerally in high demand and therefore expensive.So poor households are forced to occupy landthat is not in demand, because it is inappropriateor dangerous, such as land prone to ooding orlandslides or along railway lines, canal banks and

roadsides. They are also forced to occupy aslittle space as possible, which leads to very highdensities and unhealthy levels of overcrowding intheir settlements. Or alternatively, they may beforced to settle on land at the edge of towns andcities, where land may be more accessible, but isbeyond the urban infrastructure networks and farfromcentres of employment.

An important role of governments is to intervenein land and housing markets to ensure that thelowest income groups in the city have access tosecure land and decent housing. Political will withingovernment and civil society is essential to resolvethe problems of slumpopulations.

Slums and squatter settlements exist becausethe poor cannot afford or access even the mostminimal housing provided by the formal land andhousing markets. Many also face enormous barri-ers in accessing housing and land because of thetime, red tape and difculties involved.

There are slums of one sort or another in mostcities and towns throughout the world. In manyAsian cities, such as Mumbai, Manila and Karachi,slums are home to over 50% of the citys popula-tion. In some places, the systems for distributingand acquiring land and housing are still governedby traditional or indigenous land tenure systemsthat exist outside the market, yet even in these

places, slums exist.More and more, urban land and housing marketsare coming under enormous economic competi-tion, and this is driving up the cost of all hous-ing, so that even the most minimal standard offormal-sector housing is unaffordable to the poor.Forced out of the market, low-income householdsare left with only one option: to build, buy or rentdwellings of relatively small size, low quality ofconstruction and minimal service provision in aninformal settlement. PHO

TO:USA

IDFIREPROJECT


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For some policy-makers and professionals,slums embody all things negative: disease,crime, political unrest, misbehaviour and ig-norance. But research over many years hasrevealed that slums are highly organized hu-man settlements, both spatially and socially.Their occupants participate fully in the urbaneconomy, bringing immense cultural diversityand dynamismto their city. Contrary to popularbelief slums are not characterized by laziness ordelinquency but by energy, creativity, resource-fulness and entrepreneurial skills.

Some established slums contain within them-selves entire vibrant local economies, with theirown informal housing and land markets andtheir own diverse social and cultural groupings.While conditions in some slums may indeed besqualid, unhealthy, impoverished and sociallyexcluding, these conditions only come aboutbecause of the absence of alternatives and op-portunities for their residents. Because of thisrich diversity of slums within cities and regions, itis important that governments and NGOs seek to

What to do about slums?Before policy-makers, NGOs or donors do anything in slums,they first need to understand whats going on inside slumcommunities

rst understand the characteristics of any slum

in which they plan to intervene. Slum-dwellershold the key to that understanding, if outsiderscan only listen to them.

To understand what to do, policy-makers haveto appreciate the diversity within and betweenslums. Slumresidents have the best knowledgeof how their settlements work, the characteristicsof their communities and the nature of theirneeds and priorities.

More than meets the eye:

To outsiders, slums may look like

crowded and disorganized groups of

dirty shacks. But when you start to look

beneath their outer layers and begin to

examine whats going on underneath,

you will nd all sorts of complex and

human life-support systems at work in

slums, in which the prominent note is

resourcefulness, not hopelessness.

CON

CEPT

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PHOTO:ACHR

PHOTO:UNESCAP


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key aspects ofnformal housng development

In many cities, governments have takensteps to provide at least some basic in-frastructure in informal settlements, butthese programmes are often piecemeal,poorly planned and implemented, and manysettlements end up being left out.

The authorities may provide some water supplyvia tankers or public water taps, but the taps mayrun dry for part of the day or week, and manypeople may not be able to access them. For localgovernments, it costs little to install electric metersin informal settlements, but many slum-dwellershave to buy electricity at inated rates informallyfromnearby houses and shops.

Solid waste is rarely collected inside informalsettlements, but when residents bring their waste tobins outside the settlement, municipal waste collec-tors will usually collect it. Drainage and sanitationare major problems in informal settlements, whereinsecure tenure and low-lying, steep or hazardousland may make cities reluctant to invest in installingdrains and sewerage lines.

Informal settlements are filled with a widevariety of housing and building qualities,ranging from extremely solid concrete-frame constructions with all services, tosqualid windowless shacks made of bam-boo, mud and hammered biscuit tins.

Slums and the people who live in them arenot all the same. Many degrees of poverty are con-tained within each slum. Some owner-occupantswill be able to mobilize enough funds to improvetheir housing up to middle-class standards, whileothers will continue living in the most basic huts,unable to afford any improvements at all.

Although the health and environmental risks aregreater, one advantage of building a house ina slumis a degree of freedomfromthe bylawsof formal building practices. Since almost everyaspect of their lives is technically illegal, insteadof following someone elses idea of what shouldbe allowed, informal residents are more or lessfree to build creatively, according to their needsand constraints of space and budget.

HOUSING INFRASTRUCTURE

PHOTOS:AC

HR

PHOTOS:UN

ESCAP


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The location of their housing is extremelyimportant for the urban poor. They willalmost always try to locate themselves inareas of the city that are as close as pos-

sible to income-earning opportunities.

This often means being near the commercial citycores, near industrial zones, or near marketsand transport hubs. But the land in these placesis in high demand and extremely expensive, soif the poor cant nd land to squat on in these

areas, they will likely be forced to occupy landthat for very good reasons nobody else wants,

such as hazardous sites liable to ooding orlandslides, along roads and railway lines or onthe banks of canals and rivers.

Because even in these high-risk areas landis at a premium, the informal settlements thatdevelop there tend to be very densely populated.Alternatively, some poor households may optto settle on land in the urban periphery, beyondinfrastructure networks and far fromthe centresof employment, where land may be available,but jobs and survival will be more difcult.

LOCATION

LAND TENUREWithout a doubt, one of the most seriousproblems being faced by the millions wholive in Asias informal urban settlements is

insecure tenure.

Without legal permission to occupy land, they canbe evicted by the landowner or public landowningagency at any time. Besides making life uncertainevery day, this constant threat of eviction makesresidents of informal settlements reluctant toinvest in improving their housing or settlement.And without legally-recognized land rights, utility

companies (such as water and electricity) andother service providers (such as credit agencies)are likewise reluctant to go into informal settle-ments. As a result, informal settlements oftenremain squalid and unimproved for years.

Land tenure is not simply amatter of legal or illegal

Most countries have a range of different landtenure arrangements, all offering differentdegrees of tenure security. As informal settle-ments age and consolidate, unless there arevery clear signals of impending eviction, theresidents will gradually feel more secure fromthe possibility of losing their land. Squattersoften collect documents and evidence thatthey have been living in the same settlement

for a long time, which can often strengthentheir claimto remain on that land. Plus, whenthe authorities bring basic infrastructure suchas walkways, drains, metered water supplyand electricity into an informal settlement, it isoften perceived as bestowing a greater degreeof security or at least recognition on thatsettlement. Through all these means, squatterstry to gradually consolidate their land tenure

security, even without any legal title to the land.(See Quick Guide 3 on Land)

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PHOTO:UNESCAP


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The full involvement of women is the best guarantee that anyhousing project will be a success

The key stakeholders in any community hous-ing process are always women, whether theproject involves resettlement to new land oron-site upgrading. So it is important that spacebe created for women to play a full role in allstages of the planning and implementation.They are the ones who have the most intimateknowledge of their community and its problems,and they are the ones who already have strongsocial networks within that community. Often theprimary caretakers of the communitys homesand households, they are the ones who have themost to gain froma good community housing

project, and the most to lose if their housingconditions are bad or precarious.

It is women who have the greatest ability tomobilize support for or opposition to anyintervention in their settlement. So their fullparticipation is a key to any projects success.The involvement of women in a process whichbrings improvements in the quality of everyoneslives can also build capacities and condence,

while it enhances their status and helps under-mine entrenched patterns of inequality. When

Women andlow-ncome housng:

women play a central role in planning, con-structing and paying for their new houses andimproved infrastructure, it not only ensures thenew designs match real household needs, butit brings themout of their houses and enhancestheir status in the community as key actors intheir communitys long-termdevelopment.

In the project to rebuild the Taa Chatchai Community,

on Thailands Phuket Island, after the devastating

tsunami washed the village away, the reconstruction

of houses was supervised by an all-women team

of skilled masons. After the project was nished,

the team went on to train in other tsunami-hit

communities to take a greater role in the technical

aspects of rebuilding.

Source: www.codi.or.th

PHOTO:ACHR

Poo-ying powerIn Thailands Baan Mankong CommunityUpgrading Programme, which is now activelyunder way in 200 Thai towns and cities, you

wont hear much overt talk of gender eq-uity. But youll nd that it is overwhelminglywomen [poo-ying in Thai] who dominate theranks of the savings groups, the communityplanning committees, the building materialsprice negotiations, the construction teams,the financial management and auditingsub-groups and the community cooperativeboards. Its no exaggeration to say that the

countrys poor community upgrading move-ment is strongly poo-ying-driven.


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Dscrmnaton n access tohousng and land

Women often face both hidden and open discrimi-nation when they try to meet their own and theirfamilys housing needs. Because women (andespecially women-headed households) oftenexperience lower levels of income and higherlevels of poverty, it makes housing all that moredifcult for them to access.

Women also face all kinds of barriers to securehousing through the laws and customs in theircountries, which can restrict their ability to legallyown, lease, inherit or control the use of property.Even within the same household, women andmen often have sharply different relationshipsto the land and housing they occupy. Manycommon law systems in Asia restrict a womansright to land in different ways by denying her ac-cess to property ownership through inheritance

and marital property systems, which favor malefamily members. In many Asian countries, onlythe name of the man is included on the title deedor loan documents for a house or piece of land.Women who are single or who are single heads-of-households are especially vulnerable in theseplaces. Since womens access to land is oftenthrough their husbands or fathers or brothers,they may loose such access after becoming

widowed, divorced, deserted or left alone whentheir husbands migrate elsewhere.

Several organizations in Asia are tackling theissue of womens property rights, revising inheri-tance laws, negotiating new land tenure practiceswhich protect womens access to land and hous-ing and opening space for women to be involvedin making these systems more equitable.

IN INDIA:The National Slum-dwellers Federation (NSDF) and Mahila Milan (MM) womenssavings collectives have focused their work for the past two decades on nding many waysto improve the housing conditions and tenure rights of some of the countrys poorest, mostvulnerable women in urban slums. In all the NSDF/MM housing initiatives, it is primarily poorwomen themselves who are the designers, builders, nancial managers and project supervi-sors, and it is mostly in womens names that the nished housing units are registered.

IN LAO PDR:The Lao Womens Union works both at national government and at grassrootslevels with poor womens village savings collectives throughout the country to ensure thatwomens rights to land and property are recognized and enforced under the countrys land titlingprogrammes. This is particularly important as many rural and urban poor women are illiterateor lack the condence to deal with written documents and ofcial transactions individually.

IN BANGLADESH: The Grameen Bank has for many years provided modest housingloans to rural families to build one of its two standardized cyclone-proof house designs.But the loans are given only on the condition that the land title is in the name of the woman

head-of-household, as a means of helping improve her nancial security and status withinthe family and society.


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0 QUICK GUIDES FOR POLICY MAKERS 2, LOW-INCOME HOUSING

Evcton andslum clearanceForced eviction is the termwhich describes whathappens when people are removed fromtheirhomes and communities against their will some-times with, and often without, provisions to resettle

themsomewhere else. At their worst, evictionscan be extremely violent, brutal procedures, inwhich peoples houses, personal property, com-munities, livelihoods and support structures are alldestroyed. When the residents evicted fromtheirslumcommunities are provided with alternativeplaces to live, such relocation sites are often sofar away fromtheir jobs and support networks,so under-serviced, so environmentally hazardous

and unsuitable for human survival, that the evictedpeople are effectively rendered homeless.

The demolition of slums became common practiceby many governments fromthe 1950s onwards.But even with international recognition that forcedevictions should be outlawed, many governmentscontinue to sporadically or systematically evict ur-ban poor households with force fromtheir homes.

(See Quick Guide 4 on Eviction)

Forced evictions are a gross

violation of human rights.

United Nations Human Rights

Commission, 1993, Resolution

Number 77

In recent years the decentralization of power tolocal government mechanisms has meant that cityauthorities can adopt policies of forced evictionand resettlement, with central governments having

little scope to stop such a backwards step.

PHOTO:URCK

ARACHI

Forced evictions take place for manyreasons. Slum-dwellers may be evictedto clear valuable land for commercialredevelopment, to beautify an area ofthe city by removing unsightly squatterhousing, or to remove pockets of politi-

cal resistance. Evictions are especiallyprevalent in times of economic growth,as developers look for land and newinvestment opportunities. During timesof economic recession, forced evictionsusually decline, and slum-dwellers havea better chance of getting a good nightssleep.


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In Cambodias capital city of PhnomPenh, the residents of the sprawling river-side slumatTonle Basaachave been evicted in several brutal waves to make way for a commercialdevelopment project. City authorities had been trying for years to clear the slum. Nearly2,000 households have already been evicted and their homes burned to the ground orreduced by demolition squads to rubble. Some residents were given small plots of land ina big government resettlement colony at the outskirts of the city, 22 kilometers away.

But many households were not allotted resettlement plots and many complained that theresettlement land was uninhabitable. 1,206 households remained in Basaac, living in open

encampments, as their houses had already been demolished. Most had been renters in theold settlement, and because renters were not entitled to resettlement plots, they refusedto leave. Finally in May 2006, these lasthouseholds were forcibly evicted byarmed policemen. Increasing commer-cial pressure on land, corruption and alack of credible land records have madeland disputes increasingly common inCambodia, with many slums being de-

molished or burned in recent years.Source: ACHR

The story of two forced evictions

Metro Manila, Philippines

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

A

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In February 2007, 141 poor householdsliving under two highway overpasses inthe city were forcibly evicted fromtheirhomes. According to local civil societyorganizations, the demolition crew, whichcomprised 200 municipal personnel andarmed police, entered the communitywithout prior notice. Community leaders,who were attending a meeting called by

government ofcials nearby, rushed backto ask for time to collect their personalbelongings. But the authorities denied these requests, and police red shots in the air andbegan demolishing the houses. Many women and children were injured during the demolitionsand ve men were severely beaten with crowbars and sticks by municipal personel.

Source: www.cohre.org

PHOTO:UPAMANILA

PHOTO:A

CHR


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Evcton: the grm facts

environmental clean-up, building shoppingcomplexes, land grabbing,infrastructure development

shopping centres,infrastructure development,Olympics

environmentalimprovement, removalof hawkers, new parks,redevelopment, tourismdevelopment, caste conict

infrastructure development,redevelopment of landoccupied by hawkers

clearing up the area

removal of illegal

immigrants, roaddevelopment

infrastructure development,removal of hawkers,beautication

Bangladesh

China

India

Indonesia

Japan

Malaysia

Philippines

27,055

707,656

854,250

40,417

600

200

43,488

13 by government, 4by private groups

6 by government, 4 byprivate groups

17 by government, 4by private groups, 1 bylocal government, 2 bystate government

city government

2 by private groups, 1by local government

national and local

government

4 by local government,3 by government

17

10

24

12

3

4

7

Country Number ofevictions

Number ofpeople evicted

Reasons forthe evictions

Responsiblegroup

Figures cover January 2004 to June 2005 (Source: www.achr.net)

Forced evictions may eliminate the slums nobody wants to

see, but they do nothing to resolve the housing problems of thepeople who were forced to live there in fact by leaving peoplehomeless, they make the problems worse. When people areforcibly evicted fromtheir homes without being provided with anyalternative accommodation, they are likely to create new squattersettlements or become tenants, both of which only increase thepopulation density and problems of existing slums (see QuickGuide 7 on Rental Housing). Whatever the motive behind a forcedeviction, it can never justify the kind of cruelty that characterizes

themand only makes for even worse housing shortages.

Forcedeviction:a vicious cycle


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On-site upgrading means improving the physical, socialand economic environment of an existing informal settle-ment, without displacing the people who live there. Whencities and governments support the process of upgradinginformal communities, it is the least expensive, mosthumane way of enhancing a citys much-needed stockof affordable housing, instead of destoying it.

When most people think of slumupgrading, they tendto think only of technical programmes to install pavedwalkways, drains, water supply lines, street lights,electricity networks, sanitation and garbage disposal.These infrastructure items are denitely high up on the

list of whats needed. But a more comprehensive versionof upgrading can also assist the communitys residentsto do much more:

Houses: to make improvements to their houses orentirely rebuild them.

Land: to regularize and secure their settlementslong-termland tenure.

Incomes: to upgrade their jobs, earning capacities

and small businesses. Common facilities: to improve their facilities

such as community centres, playgrounds orcommunity enterprises.

Access to public services: to improve theiraccess to education and health care.

Welfare: to set up community-managed welfaresystems which can take care of their most vulner-

able members.

Unlike resettlement, upgrading causesminimal disturbance to peoples livesand to the delicate networks of mutualsupport in poor communities.

Upgrading usually involves somechanges to the existing communitylayout, to make roomfor installingimproved infrastructure facilities.But these changes do not need tobe huge, unless communities opt tototally rebuild their settlement, andstart fromscratch with a new plan, in-

frastructure and houses. Communitiescan nd tactful ways to accommodatethe needs of people whos housesmust be demolished or shifted tomake way for improvements.

There are many options, and the na-ture of any upgrading project dependson the priorities and resources of thepeople living in that community.

Upgrading:

good for the poorand good for thecities theyre part of

alternatves to evcton

OPTION : On-ste upgradng

Here are ve of the key alternative approaches to solving urban housing problems, which have

been applied with varying degrees of success:

APPROA

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Upgrading keeps people together in the same place where they already live, so it helpsconsolidate communities, enhance social stability and build on existing support mechanisms.

It encourages participation in the many aspects of a communitys redevelopment rstin the planning and implementation of the upgrading project, then later in many other spin-offsocial and economic activities managed collectively within the community.

It stimulates people to invest in improvements to their housing and living environments, byendorsing their long-termrights to occupy that land through long-term, secure land tenure.

It improves peoples well-being and living conditions by improving their housing andliving environments, and by freeing themfromthe looming threat of eviction.

It builds assets and enhances the value of peoples houses and land, by improving the landtenure security. As assets, the houses can be used for income-generating activities, rentedor sold in a crisis, or used as collateral to get a loan.

Why s on-ste upgradng oftenthe best opton of all?

But we need that land for other purposesOne of the first arguments against upgradinginformal settlements in situ is that the land theyoccupy is needed for other purposes. But housingprofessionals estimate that in most Asian cities, nomore than 20% of the existing informal settlementsare on land that is genuinely needed for urgentpublic development purposes, such as new roads,drainage lines, ood control projects or government

buildings. And the changing nature of how mega-projects are being marketed, nanced and designed

in Asian cities means that even these projects areoften poorly planned and could be adjusted to avoidevicting poor communities. The other 80% of theinformal settlements provide a much-needed stockof affordable housing for the people whose hardwork is fueling the citys economic growth. Enablingthese communities to stay where they already are(rather than evicting themto put up a shopping mall,

a fast-food franchise or an up-market condominium)constitutes a reasonable use of public land.

It improves settlement layouts. When people upgradecrowded, unplanned settlements, they can reorganize plotsand make space for infrastructure, pre-schools, playgrounds,clinics and places of worship.

It builds morale and pride. Upgrading a poor communityshousing and basic services not only fulls an important func-tion of local government, but also raises peoples morale,pride, civic engagement and ambition to invest further intheir houses and neighborhoods.

It improves incomes when people can use their improved,secure houses for income-earning: shops, roomrentals andhome workshops. Having a legal address also makes it easierto get better-paying jobs in the formal sector.

For every dollar a govern-ment invests in communityupgrading, poor householdswill invest an additional

seven dollars from theirown pockets, which theyput directly into their housingimprovement.

Source: web.mit-edu/

urbanupgrading/


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People-drivenupgrading in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Before: After: The same lane, after the under-ground drains have been laid, thesurface completely paved withconcrete and the houses repainted

and decorated with planting bedsin front for owers and shrubs.

In Cambodia, the community-drivenUrban Poor

Development Fund (UPDF) has been at theforefront of progress in housing policy. In 2003,the UPDF negotiated to win ofcial governmentsupport for its community-driven savings andupgrading model. By mid 2005, UPDF-sup-ported upgrading projects were completed orunderway in 66 informal settlements, coveringabout 6,000 households. Most of these projectswere in PhnomPenh. But through workshops

and exchange visits, the idea of community-driven upgrading is catching on around thecountry. Projects are now underway in 13provincial cities, including Poipet, Preveng andSiemReap.

UPDF supports a process ofcomprehensiveupgrading, which communities plan and imple-ment themselves. This approach goes beyond

making roads, drains, toilets and a few environ-mental improvements and includes providingcommunities with collective loans for housing

improvement, income generation activities

and community welfare schemes. These com-prehensive upgrading projects in PhnomPenhhave also led to the improvement of land tenurestatus in several squatter communities.

The upgrading process emphasizes networkingbetween settlements in the same ward, districtand city, and a process of learning betweencommunities throughout the upgrading process,and collaboration with the citys 77 sangkat(ward) administrations. At this lowest and mostlocal level of governance, the communities havegained the support of their ward ofcers in theprocess. The people survey all the informalcommunities in their ward. The selection ofpriority projects and implementation are man-aged by communities, in close collaborationwith the sangkatunit, while the funds for the

community upgrading pass directly fromUPDFto the community organizations.Source: www.achr.net

The Ros Reay community,before upgrading. Even in thedry season, run-off from peopleskitchens, bathrooms and toilets

turned this lane into a stinking,unhealthy swamp.

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prncples

of successful upgradng

It has to be participatory. Upgrading has to be a participatory process, which addressesrst and foremost the needs of the community, as identied collectively by its members. This isthe key to a projects sustainability. Without this participation, infrastructure improvements willnot be maintained, conditions will deteriorate, people will become disillusioned with their localgovernment and the investment in upgrading will be wasted. The more a community participatesin each stage of the process, the more successful the results will be.

It has to be done in partnership. Planning and implementing an upgrading projectis always more effective when its carried out by the community and the local government,in close collaboration. NGOs can also play a crucial role in supporting community organiza-tions, as well as providing themwith any technical support they need in designing housingimprovements or developing income generation projects.

It has to provide secure land tenure. Providing secure tenure is a vital part ofcommunity upgrading. Without it, peoples continued vulnerability to eviction will make themreluctant to invest further in their housing and living environment. Sometimes tenure is granted

to individual households in the formof title deeds or lease contracts, after the boundaries havebeen measured and recorded. Granting tenure rightsto the woman household-head instead of the mancan protect and children fromthe threat of abandon-ment and homelessness and provide themwith anasset they can use for income generation. Landtenure is increasingly being granted collectively, tocommunities as a whole, as a means of prevent-ing gentrication and building stronger communityorganization. (See Box on Individual or collectiveland rightson next page)

Make upgrading an importantpart of the solution:

The upgrading of housing,

infrastructure, and providing secure

tenure in existing informal settlementsshould be an essential part of any

governments strategy to meet the

demand for affordable housing for the

urban poor.

PHOTO:CASETHAILAIND

PHOTO:AC

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Individual or collective land rights?

In inner-city communities with high populationdensities and small house plots, communalland tenure is becoming the rst option forthe poor, for many good reasons

In the past, most slumregularization pro-grammes granted tenure rights to individual

households. But regularizing tenure by grant-ing individual title deeds to slum-dwellerscan be time-consuming, costly and proneto corruption. Changing legislation can help.The legislature of Sindh province, Pakistanpassed the Sindh Katchi Abadi RegularizationAct, under which residents of most squattersettlements are to be given long termlandleases. It also established an agency, theSindh Katchi Abadi Authority to oversee the

tenure regularization and settlement upgrad-ing process.

But a serious drawback of individual tenuresystems is that they fragment communitiesand make it easier for speculators to buy outresidents individually, leaving poor communi-

ties on desirable inner-city land vulnerable tomarket forces and gentrication. When landtenure rights (by title or by lease contract) areheld collectively, by a community organizationor housing cooperative, it can act as a powerfulbuffer against these market forces, giving com-munities a structural reason to remain united,and ensure the land will continue to be avail-able for housing the people who need it, in thelong term. (See Quick Guide 3 on Land)

Communities have to contribute. It is essential that the community contribute to the costof upgrading in some way. Experience shows this strengthens a communitys sense of ownershipof the upgrading process. The contribution can be nancial (cash or community loans) or it cantake the formof contributed labour or building materials, or some mixture of these. Upgradingworks best when the communitys contribution is supplemented by some kind of subsidy, from

donor grants or public project funds. (See Quick Guide 5 on Housing Finance)Upgrading must be affordable. The amount that households can contribute will helpdetermine the scope and content of the upgrading package. If upgrading programmes come withhigh taxes or user fees which the people cannot afford, they will probably not use or maintainthe facilities, or may simply move away to more affordable settlements elsewhere.

The project must be financially sustainable. Sustainability comes in part fromhowthe upgrading is nanced. It is best when funds from several sources are blended, includingcommunity members contributions, subsidies and loans fromgovernment, and maybe support

frominternational or local development organizations. To ensure the upgraded infrastructure iswell maintained and managed over time, it is important that the construction of this infrastructurehappen in ways which build community cohesion and organization(see Quick Guide 6 on Com-munity-based Organizations) and promote local economic development.

It should be part of the larger urban development strategy.Community upgradingprojects have to be seen as an important part of a citys larger vision of its future development.Projects shouldnt beemergencyinitiatives implemented in isolation, but should be part of plansfor overall urban management that seek to address housing problemsat city-wide scale.

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People-financed upgrading in Hue, Vietnam

A good example of a sustainable blend of sub-

sidy and peoples contribution comes fromPhuBinh Ward, in the Vietnamese city of Hue. PhuBinh is a poor area often hit by oods duringthe rainy season, when water-borne diseasesravage the ward. A few residents living on theXomAlley began discussing the problemwiththeir neighbors in a series of meetings. As aresult of these meetings, the community leaderpresented the local authorities with a proposal

to upgrade the alley and a request for nancialsupport. After obtaining the agreement of thePeoples Committee at national and city level,the local authorities agreed to the XomAlleypaving, but would provide only 30% of therequired budget.

After more community discussions about howto come up with the remaining 70% of thebudget, the people agreed that each of the 16

households living along the alley would con-tribute 140,000 Dong (about US$ 9). Insteadof paying cash fromtheir own pockets, the

people decided that each household wouldborrow this sum(at no interest) fromthe com-munity savings and credit group they wererunning in the alley, with support fromENDA(Environmental Development Action inthe ThirdWorld). Loan recipients saved 3,000 Dong (US20 cents) each day, which they deposited withtheir community leaders. Every ten days, the

project management board collected the savedmoney fromthe community leaders. Those whocouldnt afford to take loans, because of low or

unstable incomes, contributedtheir labour instead.

When the paving of the XomAlley was finished, everyoneagreed that life had denitelyimproved and that the projectencouraged residents to takeon more improvements, startingwith cleaning up some wastethat had been dumped nearby.This project also stimulatedthe local authorities to applythe same 70%30% formulato another 18 alleys in the PhuBinh Ward.

Source: UN-HABITAT, 2006PHOTO

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Things to do: Things notto do:

PROMOTE good urban governance in theprojects, in both communities and the city.

ESTABLISH enabling institutional frame-works which involve all partners and stake-holders in the process.

IMPLEMENT and monitor pro-poor citydevelopment strategies.

ENCOURAGE initiatives which come fromslum-dwellers themselves, and recognizethe role of women.

ENSURE secure tenure, consolidate oc-cupancy rights and regularize informalsettlements.

INVOLVE tenants and owners in ndingsolutions that address collective interests.

ADOPT a more incremental approach toupgrading.

ASSOCIATE municipal nance, cross-subsi-dies and beneciary contributions to ensurenancial viability of the upgrading.

DESIGN and negotiate relocation plansonly when absolutely necessary, as a lastresort.

COMBINE upgrading with employment gen-eration and local economic development.

DEVELOP new urban areas by making landand trunk infrastructure available.

Source: UN-Habitat, 2003.

ASSUME that slums will automatically disap-pear with economic growth.

UNDERESTIMATE the important contribu-tion local authorities, landowners, communityleaders or residents in the settlement canbring to the upgrading process.

SEPARATEupgrading frominvestment inplanning and urban management.

IGNORE the specic needs of and vulnerablegroups in the upgrading process.

CARRY OUT unlawful evictions.

DISCRIMINATE against people in rentalhousing or promote a single tenure option.

IMPOSE unrealistic standards and regula-tions that cant work for the poor.

RELYon governmental subsidies or on full-cost recovery fromslum-dwellers.

INVEST public resources in massive socialhousing schemes.

CONSIDER slumupgrading solely as asocial issue.

PROVIDE infrastructure and services thatpoor people cant afford.

Upgradng Dos and Donts

Source: UN-HABITAT, 2002

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A series of stakeholder meetings will be themost useful tool in helping launch the upgrading

programme, make sure everyone knows what theprogramme offers, and set up the mechanismsthat will be used during the projects planning andimplementation stages. It is important that thesemeetings have an open agenda and an open time-frame, so people feel free to speak their mindsand bring their ideas to the table. It should nothappen that somebody presents a pre-determinedupgrading package, that the stakeholders are only

allowed to approve or reject.It sometimes helps if a range of schematic up-grading options are presented by organizers anddiscussed in the meeting, as a means of breakingthe ice and getting people thinking. Community

The next step is to conduct a detailed surveyand mapping of the community and draw up agood settlement map, showing all the houses,water points, amenities and problemareas. Thisis a way to obtain accurate physical and socio-economic information about it.

This information will play a vital part in the de-velopment of the upgrading plans. In fact, com-munity members know their settlement betterthan any outsiders. So the best way to conductthis kind of survey is to allow the communityorganization to carry it out. This is another wayto increase peoples space for participationand build their skills to understand their ownproblems collectively. Some simple technicalsupport fromNGOs or local government canhelp residents to design a good questionnaire,draw up accurate settlement maps and gatherdata essential for upgrading. This survey and

Organizing meetings to get stakeholders involved

Surveying all aspects of the community

members and other stakeholders can then re-spond to the ideas. With a little bit of sensitive

technical facilitating fromcommunity architectsand organizers, they can draft their own planningoptions, with ideas about housing, infrastructure,settlement layout and natural environment.

mapping process builds the capacities of com-munity residents and at the same time stimulatesthe interest of all members of the community andstrengthens their organizations.

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PHOTO:UNESCAP

The more roomcommunities have to bringtheir needs and ideas into the process ofplanning an upgrading project, the betterthe quality of the nal upgrading plans

will be. Ready-made plans imported fromoutside are unlikely to be accepted bypeople in the community, who have hadno stake in their preparation.


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This step includes preparing the nal physicalplans for the community layout and infrastructure,designing houses and community amenities,setting out the construction schedule and labourcontracting system, and setting up systems within

the community to maintain these improvementsafter the project ends. This stage also includes thepreparation of nancial plans, detailed cost esti-mates and plans for nancing the whole project:

How much everything will cost. Who will pay for what. How these funds will ow. Who will purchase the materials. How the nances will be managed.

Its best when all this planning is carried out jointly,by community members, their NGO supporters andlocal government agencies. When communitiesorganize committees to manage various aspects ofthis planning, it becomes a trial-run for the longer-termmanagement of the communitys collectivedevelopment in the years to come.

The more roomthere is for communities to takecharge of this planning, the greater the chancesare that the project will be a success.

PHOTO

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Designing all aspects of the upgrading plan

Communities as planners

Bonkai is a 30-year old squatter community of 566households, who used to live in extremely crowdedconditions in central Bangkok, on public land belong-

ing to the Crown Property Bureau. After a big redestroyed half the settlement in 2001, the peopleused the crisis to negotiate a renewable 30-yearcommunity lease for their land and began makingplans to upgrade the whole settlement in phases,with support fromthe Baan Mankong CommunityUpgrading programme.

In order to squeeze so many households ontosuch small land, the community worked with youngarchitects to draft an extremely efcient layout planwith narrow lanes and compact 3-story row-housesbuilt on tiny plots of only 24 square meters. Tokeep the new houses as cheap as possible, theydesigned an extra-tall upper oor with a half-loft,which can later be made into a full third oor. Thesefully-nished houses cost $5,500. The communityopted to use a contractor to build the rst phasehouses, but to reduce house costs, the secondand third phase houses will be built by community

members themselves.Source: www.codi.or.th

Not only physical upgrading:

When communities prepare their

own plans for upgrading their own

settlements, it is possible for the

upgrading process to cover much

more than just the physical aspectsof their communities like housing

and infrastructure. If the upgrading

can also cover environmental

development, social development and

economic developments, this more

holistic kind of upgrading can lead to

better lives for people in many ways.PHOTO:URDCM

ONGOLIA


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The community process shouldnt stop when the

physical work of upgrading is done. The long-termmaintenance of the improvements is alsoan important task for communities to take on.

A good upgrading project can ll communities

with condence and inspire them to go on to planand carry out all kinds of further developmentprojects not only physical improvements, butsocial and economic improvements such as com-munity enterprises, community-managed welfareschemes, sports facilities, health care systems,youth activities and elderly groups. Continuedcommunity meetings can become a platformforplanning these next-stage improvements in thecommunitys life hopefully in collaboration withtheir local governments and NGOsupporters.

This is the exciting stage where the work actuallygets done, and a slumis transformed into a clean,

well-serviced new neighbourhood. During thisstage, houses are built or improved, drains arelaid, water pipe networks are buried and hookedup to individual houses, lanes are paved, electricpoles are put up, trees are planted and fencesare painted.

All this work can be done in different ways. At oneextreme, all the work can be contracted out bytender, to a builder or an NGO. Or at the other

extreme, the entire project can be built by thecommunity members themselves, who contributetheir labour and manage everything collectively.Often, the nal work is done by a combinationof the two, with the people doing as much of thework as possible themselves, and contracting outonly the more heavy or specialized or technicallydifcult tasks in the upgrading work.

Carrying out the actual upgrading work

Continue meetings as a platform for further work

PHOTO

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When communities do it

When the Ros Reay community in PhnomPenhbegan upgrading their settlement, the rst step

was to move back fences and compound wallsand straighten the lanes to make roomfor layingan underground sewage and stormdrain sys-tem, which involved enormous labour. A systemwas worked out by which each household wasresponsible for digging up the ditch in front oftheir house. Many dug by lantern-light late intothe night. The nished drains were given their

rst test during a heavy rainstorm. Everyonewas out under their umbrellas, all eyes on themanholes, through which the water was reportedto ow beautifully! The lanes were then paved,

after which trees and owers were planted along

the lane-edges, and all the houses were freshlypainted in coordinated colours.

Source: ACHR

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Questions you should ask about your upgrading project:

About getting started

About setting up the project

About carrying out the work

About monitoring, evaluating and learning How are lessons of the project being noted

and recorded? Who does this?

How are lessons being incorporated?

What are the indicators for evaluations?

Check lst

How does it t into the citys comprehen-sive development plans?

How does it consider scaling-up? Does it address issues of sustainability? Is it sensitive to cultural factors? Do the institutional and staff capacities

match the scope and scale of theproject?

Is the location appropriate to upgrade? Does the organizational structure include sufcient

coordination and political support? Is it nancially viable? Are there sufcient nancial

resources to carry through the programme? Is the scale affordable to the households, and are

they willing to pay for the improvements? Will laws and regulations need to be modied?

What will be the tenure arrangements?

What are the basic issues and key trade-offsin the upgrading programme?

What kind of institutional structure will man-age the project?

Have the different needs of women andmen in the community been appropriatelyconsidered?

How will renters and landlords in the settle-ment be dealt with in the project?

What are the policies and procedures forrealignment, readjustment and legalizationof individual lots?

What are options for nancing the installation ofbasic services and infrastructure?

How will costs be recovered?

How will costs be collected?

How will house improvement loans be structured:

cash/materials, collateral, repayments? What will happen if people default on their

loans?

What service standards will be used?

What are alternative service options, like usingsmall-scale informal sector providers?

Does the process support local initiatives inthe construction process?

How to assure continuity of staff and com-munity representatives?

What are the roles of various public sector stake-holders during construction?

What is the role of NGOs and community membersduring implementation?

Source: Upgrading Urban Communities website

Whose interests are being served? Who pays?

How will the reporting systembe set up?

What are the policies on displacement and spill-

over?


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But in reality, the resettlement of informalcommunities is sometimes unavoidable.

When resettlement is the only option, it shouldalways happen with the agreement of mostresidents. Without agreement, resettlement caneasily become forced eviction. In recent years,large projects in many Asian cities have displacedthousands of poor households. Many of theseprojects are funded by multilateral lending agen-cies like ADB and World Bank which have strictguidelines to ensure people are resettled properlyand voluntarily. Even so, most of these projectshave not gained the cooperation or support ofthose being resettled:

India: the Kolkata Canal ImprovementProject, the Jumuna River Banks Redevel-

opment in Delhi Pakistan: Lyari River Expressway

Bangladesh: Slumclearance in Dhaka

Indonesia: the River Flood Control projectin Surabaya; the Jakarta Bay ReclamationProject

Philippines: North and South Rail, PasigRiver Rehabilitation, Laguna Lake RingRoad and Camanava Flood Control projectsin MetroManila.

Providing alternative housing for ALL slum-dwellers in a city is something no govern-ment alone can do.In the 1970s, the Tamil Nadu SlumClearance Board in India had a notion thatit could actually build enough subsidized housing units to re-house all the millions of slum-dwellers inthe state and thus eradicate slums. However, the construction of large numbers of new, subsidizedhousing units proved to be far beyond their nancial and managerial means, as it is beyond the meansof most governments around the world. The rate of urbanization and rural-urban migration in mostdeveloping countries is just too high, the numbers are too great, the need for affordable housing is toooverwhelming, and the money is just not there to construct housing for all these poor urban citizens neither for the slum-dwellers already in the city, nor the migrants who continue to pour in. (SeeQuick Guide 1 on Urbanization)

Resettlement should not bethe first choice

Removing people fromtheir homes in slumsand re-housing themon alternative sitesshould never be the rst-choice option for

policy makers. Resettlement almost alwaysdestroys social networks, breaks up com-munities, dramatically reduces peoplesearning capacities, increases their transportcosts, interrupts their childrens schoolingand generally increases their poverty.

Because urban low-income housing is soscarce, demolishing slums and relocatingtheir inhabitants causes a net loss of housingunits nobody can afford to replace, and com-

pounds the problemof housing shortages.

OPTION : Resettlement

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Experience shows that it costs 10 to 15times more to develop new housing thanit costs to upgrade the housing, livingenvironments and settlements in whichpeople haved already live and have already

invested.Source: www.achr.net


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Managng the resettlementprocess n a partcpatory way

The disruption caused by resettlement affectseveryone living in a slumvery much. So itsimportant for whoever is managing the resettle-ment that trust be quickly established. How

can this be done? If the residents oppose theresettlement and refuse to leave their homes,attempting to demolish their houses constitutesforced eviction. The most essential trust-building

strategy is to involve the affected residents inall aspects of planning for the move, fromtherst notice of eviction to the nal move into new

houses. Community participation is essential toavoid destroying peoples livelihoods and thesocial networks which help themto survive. Onlywith participation can a resettlement processwith minimal conict be achieved.

Participatoryresettlement in Surabaya, Indonesia

The Indonesian government introduced theKampung Improvement Programme (KIP) in the1970s to upgrade informal settlementsin situ. In Surabaya, several households in onekampunghad to be relocated, to reduce the settlements density and widen its roads and walkways.

The government allocated a plot of land next-door for relocating people in government-builtwalk-up apartments. With technical assistance fromthe faculty and students of theLabora-tory for Housing and Human

Settlements, Surabaya Institute

of Technology (ITS), the affectedhouseholds designed the apart-ment buildings themselves.

Their scheme included wide cor-

ridors which recreated a commu-nal street space on each oorand a community market on theground oor, where stalls wereallocated to residents interestedin running food and vendingbusinesses.

Source: The Clean and Green Kampungs

of Surabaya: KIP in Surabaya. 1991PHOTO:ACHR


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Resettlement with partnership in Mumbai, India

Large-scale resettlement doesnt have to bemarked by conict and opposition. In order toimprove Mumbais suburban train system, someslums close to the tracks were earmarked fordemolition under a World Bank-nanced urbantransport project. With help fromthe local NGO

Society for the Promotion of Area ResourceCentres, the National Slum-dwellers Federationand Mahila Milan s Collectives, 1,400 slumhouseholds were able to negotiate good alterna-tive housing with long-termsecure tenure a fewkilometers away.

This resettlement process was managed entirelyby the affected people, in close partnership with

all the stakeholders. The process has becomean important demonstration model, showingthat when affected communities are key actorsin every step of the resettlement planning, thenal solution can meet both their own housingneeds and the development needs of the cityas a whole.

As part of the process, the residents surveyedhouseholds in the railway settlements, num-

bered the houses, mapped the areas to be de-molished, identied needs and organized people

to form27 cooperative housing societies. Eachsociety then visited the resettlement sites theyhad taken part in identifying, and began buildingthe temporary housing they had designed andwould occupy, in phases, while their new apart-ments in 5-story walk-up blocks were being built

by the state government (which would be partlysubsidized by the state and partly paid for bythe households themselves, through soft loans).On the appointed day, the households lockedtheir old houses and carried their belongingsin municipal trucks to the temporary houseson the new site.

Source: www.sparc-india.org

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A win-win solution:

The railway relocation project in

Mumbai shows that improving the

citys infrastructure need not be

done at the cost of poor peoplebeing forcibly removed, but with

some investment of creativity and

cooperation, it is possible for the

city to provide secure, permanent

homes for the poor people who are

displaced by the project.

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Puttng people at the centre ofthe resettlement process

Most poor communities have no wish to obstructan important urban development project whichthreatens to displace themif the project is

truely for the larger public good. But if theirneeds are not respected, and the process torelocate themto make way for that project isdone without their participation, they may notbe so willing to cooperate.

The direct, meaningful involvement ofresidents in every stage of the resettlementis the best way to ensure that the stressfulprocess of losing a home and relocating ischaracterized by cooperation and not conict.

Residents should be involved in all aspects ofplanning, including setting dates for moving,organizing transport, choosing the relocationsite, designing the community layout, housingunits and infrastructure systems and manag-ing the allottment process. Residents shouldalso be supported to organize their own small

area-based groups, which can manage themove, help dismantle the old houses and carry

No conflict necessary:

When the roadside squatter

community at Toul Svay Prey in

Phnom Penh, Cambodia, agreed

to cooperate with the municipal-

ity and voluntarily relocate their

housing to make way for a

drainage project, a highly col-

laborative resettlement project

was developed, in which the com-

munity members were key actors

in choosing the new land and

designing their new housing.PHOTOS:ACHR

with themany building materials which might beuseable in the new houses.

When affected communities are at the centreof the planning, resettlement can be a friendly,cooperative process which preserves peopleslivelihoods, social groupings and dignity. And theresettlement negotiation process itself can be acommunity-empowering process which buildsmore cohesive, condent and resourceful com-munity organizations along the way.

PHOTO

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The resettlement ste:The land chosen can make or break a resettlement project

If the new land is of good quality and at a good

location, then the cooperation and participation ofaffected residents will be easier to get. Attemptsto resettle people to land that is far fromjob op-portunities will always be met with hostility and leadto declining levels of trust between residents andgovernment authorities.

Within all towns and cities, tracts of vacant landare often held by various public sector bodies.Negotiations between public agencies, communitygroups and supporting NGOs to identify good landfor resettlement near the old slums can take a longtime. But it is possible for communities to end upwith a decent piece of land for resettlement if theyorganize and prepare themselves, search forland they like and have the stamina to see thesenegotiations through.

Resettlement by peoplein Khon Kaen, Thailand

The two keys which ensure a success-ful resettlement process are:

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For 40 years, a community of 146 poor labor-ers, trash recyclers and pedicab drivers hadbeen renting flimsy timber rooms fromtheDynamo Saw Mill, on the outskirts of KhonKaen, in northeastern Thailand. Although therent kept going up, the landlord never made

any improvements to the rooms or provided anybasic services besides a few pit-latrines. Thepeople had to buy all their water and electricityinformally and at inated rates from nearbyshops. When the saw mill again raised the rent,the community decided enough was enoughand began organizing themselves to plan andcarry out their own resettlement project, withsupport fromthe Baan Mankong Upgrading

Programme. They rst set up a savings group,formed a cooperative and began searching for

affordable land nearby. With a loan fromtheCommunity Organizations Development Institute(CODI), they bought a small piece of land, whichthey subdivided into plots and then developed,using the Baan Mankong infrastructure subsidy,

doing all the work themselves.Source: www.codi.or.th

PHOTO:CODI

Quality: A suitable piece of land forresettlement should provide the affect-

ed people with access to basic infrastructureand should have no physical, environmentalor health hazards.

Location:The new land has to en-

able people to maintain or rebuild theirlivelihoods, social networks and survivalstrategies with minimal disruption, so thesite should be close to job opportunities,with easy access to public services such asschools, clinics, banks and transport links.


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0 QUICK GUIDES FOR POLICY MAKERS 2, LOW-INCOME HOUSING

The belief that governments should take respon-sibility for constructing housing for urban poorhouseholds has been surprisingly durable. Whengovernments design, build and deliver low-incomehousing (for sale or rent), it is seen as a way ofensuring that the housing is of good quality anddeveloped in an orderly manner.

In order to make such public housing affordableto the poor, though, the costs of constructing andmanaging it must be heavily subsidized. Very few

city or national governments have the political willor the nancial resources to pay for this subsidy,or to build enough housing to meet even a fractionof the housing needs of the citys poor.

Despite these drawbacks, many governmentsaround the world have continued to pursue state-built housing policies, and large developmentsof subsidized public housing continue to appear

here and there in cities, while nancial systemsto capture savings and generate resources topay for these housing programmes continue tobe set up.

The sad fact, though, is that the impact of theseconventional programmes has been minimal, theirambitious targets have not been met and theircosts have been too high. Little or no per-unit

subsidy was given, so that more units could bebuilt. Often the new housing became too expensiveand could only be afforded by relatively well-offhouseholds. At the same time, if a larger per-unitsubsidy was given, which would allow poorergroups to afford them, this meant that relativelyfew could be built.

Creating state-built slums

There have also been plenty of complaintsabout inaccessibility, poor services, bad de-sign and sub-standard construction in manystate-built housing programmes. In manyprojects, people move in and out very rapidly,with higher-income groups invariably movingin and the poor moving out and returning tosquatter settlements.

Where this gentrication has not happened,the housing often falls into disrepair andbecomes a new kind of slum, due to lack ofmaintenance by the state and lack of involve-ment by residents. In India, for example, alarge part of the Tamil Nadu SlumClearanceBoards slumupgrading programme in thelate 1980s was to renovate the crumbling

apartment blocks it had built itself to resettleslum-dwellers just 15 years earlier.

OPTION : Government -bult new publc housng

Public housing that is built by the

state is still an option, but there is

increasing evidence around the world

that this solution is too expensive for

most governments.

PHOTO:UNESCAP


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Can governmentsprovide housing for all?

Experience shows that large-scalepublic housing delivery

is not a solution

In European cities, there is a long history of public housing schemes being developed toresettle large numbers of inner-city slum-dwellers. But these days, many of the high-risepublic housing estates, built at low cost and usually in their own isolated corners of thecity, are often plagued with endemic poverty, crime, economic and social exclusion, ethnicand religious tensions, and fast declining physical environments and local economies.

From public housing in Singapore and Hong Kong

Large-scale programmes to construct subsidized, standardized, fully-complete housing unitsfor existing and future poor households are too costly for the governments in most developingand developed countries. Public resources are better spent on improving the existing stock of

affordable housing (no matter how sub-standard) and implementing a range of innovative andexible approaches to create new stock. Where did the idea then come from that governmentsshould be the chief providers of affordable housing to the urban poor?

True believers in state-built public housing policies will frequently bring up the successstories of Hong Kong and Singapore in the 1960s and early 1970s, to support their claimthat governments can supply decent, affordable housing to all the poor in their cities.

What they wont tell you is that Hong Kong was a show-case colony and that Singaporeis a city state, neither of which had to work within tight public budgets, like much of therest of the world. Unlike virtually all other Asian cities, the afuent Singapore has nocountryside and therefore no rural migrants constantly owing into the city, putting a strainon the urban housing stock. And in Hong Kong, public housing still constitutes 50% ofthe citys housing stock, but instead of being praised for this, the governments continuedhigh production of subsidized ats for sale has been blamed for the collapse of the citysproperty prices and private housing market. Mass production of public housing in thecontext of economic globalization has implications that nobody predicted when policesof public housing construction were rst advocated.

From public housing in Europe

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PHOTO:GOVERNMENTOFSIN

GAPORE


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The benefits of sites-and-services

The state as facilitator, not provider:

Sites-and-services are an attempt to strike a

balance between minimum, socially-acceptable

housing conditions and what their low-income

beneciaries can afford. In these projects, the state

plays a lesser role than it does in fully-built public

housing.

Sites-and-services enable governments to share respon-sibility for providing housing with low-income groups andthus save scarce public resources.

Because they are planned, the provision of infrastructure

and services is cheaper to build and maintain.The beneciaries are in control of the pace and form of

house construction.

They can reach large numbers of people, while maintainingsome minimumsafety and public health standards.

They can be useful in accommodating essential resettle-ment projects.

If properly planned and implemented, they can provide a

exible way of meeting future housing needs.

As a reaction to most governments inability to

provide adequate, ready-built shelter to all theurban poor households who need it, there hasbeen a shift in thinking around the world, fromseeing the state asprovider of housingto seeingit as a facilitator of the self-help housing effortsby the poor themselves. One formthis facilitationtakes is when governments provide plots andbasic services in a planned manner, but let peoplebuild their own houses on that land. These arecalled sites-and-services schemes.

recovery approach, the people may be expected to

repay the costs of land and development gradually,but in other projects, these are provided free, asa public subsidy. How much the projects provideto the beneciary households varies: in some,only an empty plot is provided, while in others,an already-built oor slab with utility connections,roofs or one-roomcores houses might be pro-vided. Utility services also vary, fromcommunal pitlatrines and shared water standpipes at the mostbasic, to full piped services to individual plots.

OPTION : Stes-and-servces

PHOTO:ACHR

The strategy in sites-and-servicesis to share the responsibility forproviding decent, affordable hous-ing in the city, between the stateand the people. The governmentagencies take responsibility only

for preparing the plots and bring-ing in certain basic infrastructure.The individual plots are then sold,leased or allotted to the beneciaryhouseholds, whose responsibil-ity it is to build their own house sometimes with soft loans, basicbuilding materials and technicalsupport provided by the project,

and sometimes on their own. Insome projects which take a cost-


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ways to make stes-and-servcesschemes work better:

Provide land in a good location.The location of a sites-and-services project can make ita success or a disaster. Land should be close to employment centres, in order to offer viableearning opportunities for people who live there. Land should also be close to existing infra-structure trunk grids, to reduce the costs of extending these grids to the project.

Recognize that sites dont have to be huge or at the city edge. Sites-and-servicesschemes are often developed on large pieces of land at the outer edges of the city, wherelarge numbers of house plots, schools, recreational and social amenities can be developedin a planned way. But in reality, most cities have many smaller available sites right inside the

city, with easier access to existing infrastructure and services. These inner-city sites can bedeveloped more cheaply, without having to invest in costly trunk infrastructure extensions.

Keep plot sizes small. That way, more people can be accommodated and costs kept low.When determining plot sizes, its good to plan for meeting a variety of needs and to study howlow-income households use their domestic space and how much land they need, minimally.Existing standards and bylaws are often inappropriate and have to be challenged, to makeprojects affordable to the poor and prevent them from being gentried in future.

Reduce services costs through good planning.The cost of laying infrastructure withinsites-and-services schemes can be greatly reduced by planning rectangular housing plotswith narrow frontages. Square plots are the most uneconomical. The design of roads, lanes,water supply, sewage and electricity should be decided according to how affordable and howsocially acceptable they are to the people who live there. As in all low-income housing, thekey to making this happen is the full participation of beneciaries in planning, implementationand maintenance.

Develop increme

31595011 low income housing approaches to help the urban poor find adequate accommodation

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